Deputy Matron Kerry Puga is our latest inspirational community nursing leader to be crowned a Queen’s Nurse, one of the highest accolades available to the profession in the country.
The much coveted title from the Queen’s Nurse Institute is only granted to highly dedicated nurses who can demonstrate their commitment to providing the high standards of practice and care which places patients and their loved ones at the heart of everything they do.
Kerry received her award and official title at the QNI’s awards ceremony held in London on 28 November 2022.
She was presented with her award by Professor Deborah Sturdy OBE, Chief Nurse for Adult Social Care and Fellow of the QNI and Royal College of Nursing.
It is her passion and drive to continuously develop community services ensuring she and colleagues can deliver the highest quality care for patients that is being recognised by her new title.
“It is great honour to have received the Queen’s Nurse Title,” said Kerry.
I have always been passionate about community nursing and have been privileged to work with an amazing team of colleagues developing and delivering care to patients in Newcastle.
Kerry Puga, Deputy Matron for Community Nursing
Now I am looking forward to joining the Queen’s Nursing Institute to network with community colleagues both regionally and nationally.”
Kerry’s nursing career began as a staff nurse in vascular surgery at the Freeman Hospital.
Three years later she moved into district nursing and has never looked back, working in a number of roles including Cluster Coordinator and more recently Deputy Matron.
“I have always loved working in the community and feel very passionate about our role doing all we can to care for and support people to keep them well and in their own home or other place of residence,” continued Kerry.
“Community nursing is incredibly varied – no two days are ever the same. You find yourself challenged in lots of ways and you can make a real difference to patient and families, especially when you are providing palliative and end of life care. That’s a real privilege – it’s so important to get it right and the families remember you forever.”
Innovation in action
Kerry says she feels lucky to have contributed towards the creation and delivery of innovative approaches to meeting patients’ needs. This includes the Same Day Response Team, introduced during the COVID pandemic when districting nursing teams were redeployed to support people who would normally be seen in ambulatory care clinics.
This team took all unplanned calls which would vary across the spectrum of urgency and severity and was so successful that when clinics recommenced the community directorate decided to continue the Response Team approach. Kerry was asked to continue to develop the team which has evolved into avoiding hospital admissions as well.
“Successful care in the community is all about having the right professionals with the right skills at every point of contact to make sure the patient gets the right care,” explained Kerry.
“But equally it’s important to do all you can to help prevent people from having to rely on urgent or emergency care services when they are not necessary.”
Supporting staff to liberate their potential
Kerry is extremely passionate about educating, developing and supporting staff for their own progression and to ensure the district nursing workforce of the future has the correct skills and knowledge to meet service needs.
As a Practice Assessor Kerry currently supports two District Nurse Apprenticeship Students working collaboratively with the Practice Supervisor to support, develop and assess them over an 18-month period.
She also ensures staff can progress through continuous development and has created a comprehensive new starter induction pack, compiled to standardise best practice and guidance to support all new members of the team working across the city.
Strong Professional Leadership
Kerry was awarded a place on the Florence Nightingale Foundation Community Nurse Leadership Programme in 2020.
“This course has been inspirational”, said Kerry. “I now have a greater understanding of my own leadership style and the leader I aspire to be. I have a greater awareness of my self-presence and how that can impact on others and believe the course has improved my confidence and ability to understand and lead on improvements.”
National representation
Kerry recently led on a NHS planning guidance project whereby all intermediate care teams across England are expected to deliver the national 2-hour crisis response standard and provide accurate data to demonstrate achievement of this standard.
Kerry explained: “Although our service already delivered an effective 2-hour urgent response model, the way the information was recorded gave an inaccurate account of resource allocated by the team. To overcome this challenge, we formulated a new way of recording urgent referrals and visits on SystmOne. This included developing training and guidance for staff.
“Following our first month over 80% of our urgent response patients were seen within 2 hours and recorded accurately, which is above NHS England’s recommended standard of 70%. We will continue to work on this project to embed it into practice and roll it out to other services within the directorate.”
“A great nursing role model”
Of her award Cheryl Teasdale, Associate Director of Nursing and Professional Nursing Lead for Community Services said “An experienced and passionate community nurse, Kerry is very deserving of the Queens Nurse title, taking every opportunity to highlight the fantastic work delivered by the community teams, and pushing the community Nursing agenda to the forefront.
“Kerry is a great nursing role model, progressing from community staff nurse, to district nursing sister, cluster coordinator and now as Deputy Matron within community services, and is determined to ensure nursing staff and health care assistants are supported to develop clinically, professionally and academically.
“She leads the team to provide the highest standards of quality care, and does so with authenticity and compassion. Kerry is a real asset to the both the community team and the wider senior nursing team across Newcastle Hospitals.
“Congratulations and well done Kerry.”
What is a Queen’s Nurse?
The Queen’s Nurse programme brings together community nurses to develop their professional skills and deliver outstanding patient care in the community.
The Queen’s Nurse Award honours nurses who have demonstrated a high level of commitment to patient-centred values and nursing practice.
Queen’s nurses demonstrate integrity, honesty and compassion whilst delivering the highest quality care to the benefit of individuals, carers, families, communities and peers.
They communicate in a manner which encourages the trust of individuals, offer holistic, personalised care which acknowledges, and is tailored to, the needs of the client.
Queen’s nurses also act as an inspiring role model to peers and professional colleagues and are committed to the development of community nursing by providing learning and leadership opportunities.
